Everyone wants to help save the bees – even British supermarket chain Sainsbury’s, who will be installing eight bee “hotels” on the land around its Gloucestershire supermarket. You may remember that this particular location is super green already with a rainwater collection system[2], tons of energy efficient technology, daylighting and a kinetic energy recovery system in the parking lot[3]. Since the Sainsbury store is located in one of the more important growing regions in the UK, the store hopes that providing a home for the bees will help with local pollination.

Landscaping around the eco-supermarket has been updated in order to provide the bees with a rich and varied diet of pollen and nectar. The store has no intention of making honey from the bees, they merely want to provide them with a safe and non-toxic home base from which to conduct their important pollination work. The bee “hotels” are handcrafted from sustainably sourced timber and recycled materials[4] from places on land surrounding the store.

Experts believe the bees will cover a considerable distance from the store across the Gloucestershire district, pollinating commercial crops as well as backyards and flowers. Sainsbury’s hopes that by giving them ideal conditions to live and breed, they will be able to help stricken bee populations[5] grow and thrive. Jack Cunningham, Sainsbury’s Environment Manager, said[6], “The rapid decline in bee population has had a severe impact upon the productivity of British crops, so we have decided to take practical steps to help. Sainsbury’s already has a loyalty scheme where customers can collect Nectar points, so enabling bees to collect the real thing makes perfect sense.”